Role of Post-Harvest Physiology in Evolution of Transgenic Crops

Abstract

The increasing world population over few decades has led to increase in demand of food grains or agricultural commodities, thus possessing great impact on food security. Conventional farming approaches has been traditionally practiced but a lot of effort is required to make to enhance agricultural production. With changing climatic conditions plants are vulnerable to several stress factors. In order to combat such conditions, the agricultural systems are needed to be contemporary with advance and recent technologies. Crops after harvest are liable to a lot of changes which ultimately affect quality and quantity of produce, thus reducing economic value. Postharvest losses are decisive factors in reducing loss of produce and agricultural commodities. Thus in order to achieve maximum production, it is therefore essential to reduce postharvest losses and ensures proper management of postharvest products. Postharvest physiology is the science which deals with quantitative and qualitative study of physiology of agricultural products after harvesting. Biotechnological and transgenic approaches are the recent and emerging technologies that possess great impact on agricultural production. Transgenic technology like genome editing, CRISPR/Cas9, TILLING are successfully used in various species to enhance production, possess resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses, enhance shelf life and improve nutritional quality. Transgenic crops or Genetically modified crops (GMO) like tomato, brinjal, soybean, cassava etc are cultivated globally. These techniques therefore are promising means in establishing food security, increasing crop production, reducing postharvest losses, production of secondary metabolites, hormones and plantibodies.